A bad deal on Iranian nukes would be so catastrophic to global security that presidential resistance to a related speech—by the leader of an allied democracy, who may be the greatest expert on the issue—should leave everyone speechless.

Worse still, Obama and many commentators upbraid Bibi for trying to influence the very negotiations whose outcome will decide whether military force is needed, creating an absurd catch-22. If Bibi does nothing to prevent Obama from making Iran a threshold nuclear state, then he will be excoriated for any Israeli military attack undertaken to defang that threat; but if he speaks up now while a non-military solution is still possible (with adjustments to Obama's disastrous negotiating strategy), then he is accused of meddling in U.S. politics and breaching protocol.

Obama's extraordinary fear of different views speaks volumes about his amateurish policy-making approach and his dubious motives. Is he trying to get a deal at any cost just to show an ostensible foreign policy win after so many conspicuous failures (from Ukraine to Syria)? Does he not realize that his legacy would be far more tarnished as the leader who enabled the world's leading sponsor of terror to acquire nuclear weapons?

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The current deal reportedly allows Iranian uranium enrichment to continue with about 7,000 centrifuges and eventually ends inspections, leaving Iran as a threshold nuclear state. The day Tehran decides to go nuclear, terrorism itself becomes exponentially more lethal, and a wave of nuclear proliferation will spread across the Middle East. Iran's rivals will seek to deter it with nukes of their own, making the world's most dangerous and unstable region a nuclear powder keg, with Islamists like ISIS eager to grab whatever nuclear materials they can.

A bad deal also makes it that much harder for any state to take preemptive military action against Iran's nukes and strengthens the very government that optimists naively think will change once the Iranian economy opens up with the lifting of sanctions. The Iranian regime's survival will be extended by a double victory: improving the economy and keeping Iran's nuclear program, which has broad nationalist support. The Ayatollahs will have nukes long before the world has a democratic Iran run by moderates.

Never has a foreign leader's Congressional address mattered so much to global security. Fortunately, most Americans want to hear Netanyahu's speech before it's too late to avoid much worse scenarios. Obama's efforts to silence Bibi only exacerbate serious concerns about Obama's strategy, competence and intentions. Any time a president tries this hard to suppress an opposing view shared by myriad experts and allies, the public needs to hear that other view.

Noah Beck is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.

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